Urban and extra-urban hybrid vehicles: a technological review

Pollution derived from transportation systems is a worldwide, timelier issue than ever. The abatement actions of harmful substances in the air are on the agenda and they are necessary today to safeguard our welfare and that of the planet. Environmental pollution in large cities is approximately 20% due to the transportation system. In addition, private traffic contributes greatly to city pollution. Further, “vehicle operating life” is most often exceeded and vehicle emissions do not comply with European antipollution standards. It becomes mandatory to find a solution that respects the environment and, realize an appropriate transportation service to the customers. New technologies related to hybrid –electric engines are making great strides in reducing emissions, and the funds allocated by public authorities should be addressed. In addition, the use (implementation) of new technologies is also convenient from an economic point of view. In fact, by implementing the use of hybrid vehicles, fuel consumption can be reduced. The different hybrid configurations presented refer to such a series architecture, developed by the researchers and Research and Development groups. Regarding energy flows, different strategy logic or vehicle management units have been illustrated. Various configurations and vehicles were studied by simulating different driving cycles, both European approval and homologation and customer ones (typically municipal and university). The simulations have provided guidance on the optimal proposed configuration and information on the component to be used

Making Transport Safer: V2V-Based Automated Emergency Braking System

An important goal in the field of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) is to provide driving aids aimed at preventing accidents and reducing the number of traffic victims. The commonest traffic accidents in urban areas are due to sudden braking that demands a very fast response on the part of drivers. Attempts to solve this problem have motivated many ITS advances including the detection of the intention of surrounding cars using lasers, radars or cameras. However, this might not be enough to increase safety when there is a danger of collision. Vehicle to vehicle communications are needed to ensure that the other intentions of cars are also available. The article describes the development of a controller to perform an emergency stop via an electro-hydraulic braking system employed on dry asphalt. An original V2V communication scheme based on WiFi cards has been used for broadcasting positioning information to other vehicles. The reliability of the scheme has been theoretically analyzed to estimate its performance when the number of vehicles involved is much higher. This controller has been incorporated into the AUTOPIA program control for automatic cars. The system has been implemented in Citroën C3 Pluriel, and various tests were performed to evaluate its operation

Optimized energy management strategies and sizing of hybrid storage systems for transport applications

205 p. El contenido del capítulo 4, sección 4.3 está sujeto a confidencialidad.Esta tesis doctoral aborda la temática acerca del óptimo dimensionamiento y operación de sistemashíbridos de almacenamiento de energía (HESS), combinando baterías y supercapacitores, con el objetivode ser integrados en vehículos para movilidad pública en entornos urbanos. Por una parte, se propone unainnovadora estrategia energética, basada en lógica difusa, para gestionar la división de la demanda depotencia entre las fuentes de energía disponibles a bordo del vehículo. La estrategia adaptativa que sepropone evalúa la información energética actual y futura (estimada) para adaptar, de una formaoptimizada y eficiente, la operación del sistema con el objetivo de mejorar el aprovechamiento de laenergía almacenada en los recursos a bordo del vehículo.Por otro lado, se ha propuesto una metodología para la co-optimización de la estrategia de gestión ydimensionamiento del HESS. Esta metodología de optimización evalúa tanto técnica comoeconómicamente las posibles soluciones mediante un problema multi-objetivo basado en algoritmosgenéticos. Para determinar el costo de reemplazo del HESS han sido aplicados modelo de envejecimientoy estimación de vida y se ha considerado la vida útil del vehículo.Con el objetivo de validar la propuesta de esta tesis doctoral, dos casos de estudio relevantes en latransportación pública han sido seleccionados: Tranvía Eléctrico Híbrido y Autobús Eléctrico Híbrido

High capacity bus systems: A design methodology using artificial intelligence

Buses form the basis of the public transport system in many cities of the world: improvements to the operation of bus systems could therefore provide useful benefits in a variety of circumstances. In some cases (notably in Brazil) enhancements to the bus system have been achieved through the design of infrastructure and operations. This study examines both the nature of these enhancements to bus systems and the methods by which they were achieved, in order to facilitate the use of such techniques to improve bus systems elsewhere. Detailed discussions with engineers responsible for existing Brazilian high capacity bus systems reveal how these were conceived and put into operation. In addition, they indicate important variables and models (existing or new) that could be used during this process. In order to distinguish between results obtained on the basis of good quality data and those depending on data of poorer quality, existing artificial intelligence methods are investigated for their performance with poor quality data. These methods may provide some interpretative element, but they do not appear to be appropriate for the representation of the engineer's ability to interpret data. In order to include such assessments, a model is presented which represents the use by the engineer of opinion and judgement in the decision process. The design methodology for high capacity bus systems is represented in a computer model and validated with data representing the situation in a corridor before the implementation of a high capacity bus system. The resulting design is considered to be similar to the design actually implemented. The model is also tested in two other situations where the constraints are more severe, in Peni and in London. The results suggest that it is not possible to obtain a satisfactory design for a high capacity bus system in these corridors

Microsimulation models incorporating both demand and supply dynamics

There has been rapid growth in interest in real-time transport strategies over the last decade, ranging from automated highway systems and responsive traffic signal control to incident management and driver information systems. The complexity of these strategies, in terms of the spatial and temporal interactions within the transport system, has led to a parallel growth in the application of traffic microsimulation models for the evaluation and design of such measures, as a remedy to the limitations faced by conventional static, macroscopic approaches. However, while this naturally addresses the immediate impacts of the measure, a difficulty that remains is the question of how the secondary impacts, specifically the effect on route and departure time choice of subsequent trips, may be handled in a consistent manner within a microsimulation framework. The paper describes a modelling approach to road network traffic, in which the emphasis is on the integrated microsimulation of individual trip-makers’ decisions and individual vehicle movements across the network. To achieve this it represents directly individual drivers’ choices and experiences as they evolve from day-to-day, combined with a detailed within-day traffic simulation model of the space–time trajectories of individual vehicles according to car-following and lane-changing rules and intersection regulations. It therefore models both day-to-day and within-day variability in both demand and supply conditions, and so, we believe, is particularly suited for the realistic modelling of real-time strategies such as those listed above. The full model specification is given, along with details of its algorithmic implementation. A number of representative numerical applications are presented, including: sensitivity studies of the impact of day-to-day variability; an application to the evaluation of alternative signal control policies; and the evaluation of the introduction of bus-only lanes in a sub-network of Leeds. Our experience demonstrates that this modelling framework is computationally feasible as a method for providing a fully internally consistent, microscopic, dynamic assignment, incorporating both within- and between-day demand and supply dynamic

Fuzzy controller hardware implementation for an EV\u27s HESS energy management

The recent technological advances related to embedded systems, and the increased requirements of the Electric Vehicle (EV) industry, lead to the evolution of design and validation methodologies applied to complex systems, in order to design a product that respects the requirements defined according to its performance, safety, and reliability. This research paper presents a design and validation methodology, based on a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) approach, including a software platform represented by Matlab/ Simulink and a real-time STM32 microcontroller used as a hardware platform. The objective of this work is to evaluate and validate an Energy Management System (EMS) based on Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC), developed in C code and embedded on an STM32 microcontroller. The developed EMS is designed to control, in real-time, the energy flow in a hybrid energy storage system (HESS), designed in an active topology, made of a Li-ion battery and Super-Capacitors (SC). The proposed HESS model was organized using the Energetic Macroscopic Representation (EMR) and constructed on Matlab/Simulink software platform. The evaluation and validation of the developed algorithm were performed by comparing the HIL and simulation results under the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC)

Development of an Integrated Incident and Transit Priority Management Control System

The aim of this thesis is to develop a distributed adaptive control system which can work standalone for a single intersection to handle various boundary conditions of recurrent, non-recurrent congestion, transit signal priority and downstream blockage to improve the overall network in terms of productivity and efficiency. The control system uses link detectors’ data to determine the boundary conditions of all incoming and exit links. Four processes or modules are deployed. The traffic regime state module estimates the congestion status of the link. The incident status module determines the likelihood of an incident on the link. The transit priority module estimates if the link is flagged for transit priority based on the transit vehicle location and type. Finally, the downstream blockage module scans all downstream links and determines their recurrent blockage conditions. Three different urban incident detection models (General Regression Model, Neuro-Fuzzy Model and Binary Logit Model) were developed in order to be adopted for the incident status module. Among these, the Binary Logit Model was selected and integrated with the signal control logic. The developed Binary Logit Model is relatively stable and performs effectively under various traffic conditions, as compared to other algorithms reported in the literature. The developed signal control logic has been interfaced with CORSIM micro-simulation for rigorous evaluations with different types of signal phase settings. The proposed system operates in a manner similar to a typical pre-timed signal (with split or protected phase settings) or a fully actuated signal (with splitphase arrangement, protected phase, or dual ring phase settings). The control decisions of this developed control logic produced significant enhancement to productivity (in terms of Person Trips and Vehicle Trips) compared with the existing signal control systems in medium to heavily congested traffic demand conditions for different types of networks. Also, more efficient outcomes (in terms of Average Trip Time/Person and delay in seconds/vehicle) is achieved for relatively low to heavy traffic demand conditions with this control logic (using Split Pre-timed). The newly developed signal control logic yields greater productivity than the existing signal control systems in a typical congested urban network or closely spaced intersections, where traffic demand could be similarly high on both sides at peak periods. It is promising to see how well this signal control logic performs in a network with a high number of junctions. Such performance was rarely reported in the existing literature. The best performing phase settings of the newly developed signal control were thoroughly investigated. The signal control logic has also been extended with the logic of pre-timed styled signal phase settings for the possibility of enhancing productivity in heavily congested scenarios under a closely spaced urban network. The performance of the developed pre-timed signal control signal is quite impressive. The activation of the incident status module under the signal control logic yields an acceptable performance in most of the experimental cases, yet the control logic itself works better without the incident status module with the Split Pre-timed and Dual Actuated phase settings. The Protected Pre-timed phase setting exhibits benefits by activating the incident status module in some medium congested demand